[SWEDEN] Winter has arrived, and with a vengeance!

So much for the supposed warm winter!

Yesterday, I asked the hotel receptionist to call a cab for me, and she mentioned to me that it was snowing a bit and that, based on the weather report, it would be a lot colder this week than it has been in Lund so far. I step out of the hotel to get into the cab and indeed it is snowing lightly. Once I got to the office, it started to snow a whole lot more. It stopped by mid-afternoon, but by that time, the city had turned into a winter wonderland.

I have seen snow before, a couple of times in fact, and while it is thrilling for folks who come from tropical countries to see snow (it still is), the knowledge that it can actually get a bit dangerous was in my mind a lot more and I was ended up being a bit more cautious than excited.

On my way home, I actually had to hitch a ride home with one of my colleagues here because taxis were fully booked last night and it would take half an hour for a taxi to become available. On our way to his car, I got to feel just how cold it was. Once again, I didn't have my gloves, scarf, and hat with me, but I never bring those to the office because I normally take a taxi and it drives up all the way to the door to either drop me off or pick me up, and so I would normally have about 5 seconds of exposure to the weather. But since I was riding with my teammate, we had to walk all the way to his car in the parking lot. And of course, his car was now covered with snow so he spent a couple of minutes scraping the ice off of the windows and mirrors.

When we get into his car, he checks the temperature reading and apparently, it's -3 degrees. Damn! So that's why I felt so cold! -3 with the wind blowing and no hat, scarf, and gloves again. This is starting to become a pattern! And here I thought I had a decent learning curve and never made the same mistake twice... =)

So this morning, I made sure I had at least my gloves and hat with me (I just stuffed them into the pockets of my jacket). Not that I needed them today, though. It was still cold (-13 at around 8am I was told) and it snowed for a short period of time in the mid afternoon, but as is normally the case, I got door-to-door cab service. Thank God!

One other thing about this kind of weather: it becomes difficult to walk on the ice-covered sidewalk. I nearly slipped on several occasions last night on my way to dinner and back. I was chatting about it to my friend Chris and he said I need a good pair of boots. I should've thought of that before I left Manila. I mean, I can imagine how much boots cost here. Although actually, I DID think about it before I left Manila, but I was running out of money and approaching my credit card limit so I decided against buying them. Let's just hope it doesn't snow too much while I am here.